Yesterday’s News Tomorrow: This is something I used to do, but stopped because it became way too time intensive. Basically my cable package gives me access to the public broadcasters of Britain, America and Canada — BBC World, PBS: The News Hour and CBC — as well as all of the American and Canadian National and several Local American Newscasts, and two Canadian Cable News Channels so I thought it’d be interesting to see what priority news stories got from the three countries… unfortunately the transmission tower for the American PBS station I was using collapsed in an ice storm back in April, and they’re pretty much dead until the fall. But “The News Hour” does rebroadcast their newscast online so I’ll be using that starting next week. The problem was the time involved became insane… taking notes from three to six newscasts every Monday evening, then finding my own sources, rewriting the whole thing then getting it up on the blog… it was usually a six hour post. But I think I’ve figured out how to make it manageable, so starting next week the Monday News Threesome is something I’m bringing back… basically this is aboot me trying to get back into the schedule I dropped aboot six weeks ago. Until then, this is a little quickie…

These are the first three stories from the three Canadian National Newscasts: the CBC — our “public” broadcaster, and our two private channels, CTV and Global. We’ve got aboot a hundred or so “specialty” cable channels but those cost extra and I like my apartment with electricity.

1) Security Sweep: Global is now claiming to be “Canada’s Most Watched Newscast”… maybe, probably, but it’s definitely the most American in terms of production and reporting style. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, American newscasts aren’t nearly as vacant as some believe. The non-bomb situation in the UK seems to be rapidly winding up, suspects have been picked up in Australia, Glasgow, Liverpool and on a highway near Cheshire. There really wasn’t anything new to this particular report, but reporter Stuart Greer definitely wanted to make sure the gravity of the situation was understood by everyone. As he was summing up he mentioned that “people” “believed” “there was an al Qaeda link”, he then threw us a clip of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and Her Cleavage telling us “everything’s going to be alright”, but nothing aboot al Qaeda. Then we’re back to Stuart for the wrap up and he tells us “it’s unclear if there are any links to al Qaeda.” The only people mentioning al Qaeda in all of this seem to be the reporters…

2) Improving Relations: While he was in the general region Russian President Vlad Putin requested an unexpected meeting with President GW Bush. A lot has been made aboot this meeting apparently having very little focus, and the stuff they’re releasing to the media pretty much shows that there has been no apparent focus… “common ground over Iran”, “thawing relations”… but this is one of the strangest political and/or diplomatic meetings I’ve ever heard of, these types of meetings take months to prepare for. The protocol involves encyclopedias, they have whole departments dedicated to this sort of thing, Russian Presidents don’t just “pop over” for a quick meeting with the President of the United States. It is interesting that the next story occurred just after the meeting…

3) Americans Have Proof Of Iran Proxy In Iraq: Surprise! Iran is using Hezbollah as their proxy in Iraq. According to the American Military, Lebanese and Iraqis are being trained in Lebanon and sent into Iraq to make IED’s and basically fuck shit up. At their — really weird — meeting Russia changed its tone aboot Iran’s nuclear program, not entirely embracing the American position, but making it pretty clear Russia won’t automatically veto a stronger Security Council resolution.

1) Aftermath From Attempted Bombings: CBC was really late to this whole story. By the time CBC’s cable news channel — CBC Newsworld — finally started talking aboot the Glasgow Airport incident, the other cable news channel — CTV Newsnet — had the story for aboot half an hour. The CBC never really seemed interested in the story for the first few hours, in fact the first real report came when BBC World’s 6pm broadcast took over the station. Anyway. Reporters, for some reason, seem perplexed that “professionals” like “doctors” would conceive of doing something like blowing up a thousand people. As if the World Trade Center has been destroyed by illiterate street people — two of the suspects so far are “doctors”, but not really as one was a medical student. The really interesting part of this will be how America reacts to CCTV being instrumental, once again, in finding the people responsible.

2) Suicide Car Bomb In Yemen: A whole lot of Spanish tourists got killed when a suicide bomber jammed his car into a convoy of buses and pulled his trigger. He must not have gotten the memo that Spanish soldiers weren’t in Iraq anymore.

3) Putin And Bush Meet: There were really convincing reports out of Russia not too long ago aboot Putin’s sexual proclivities… remember that bizarre moment a few months ago when Putin grabbed that random kid and, basically, molested his stomach? Yeah. Anyway. Putin does have a point aboot the Missile Defense System the Americans are pushing… if he was Chinese his point would be more convincing. The Shield can be considered a First Strike Weapon… picture this: the Americans get their Shield working properly. That means America can rain nuclear weapons down on China, taking out 99% of China’s nuclear weapons. Those Chinese weapons, normally, could be fired all at once, overwhelming the American Shield. But with only 1% of their arsenal left the Chinese response is taken care of by The Shield. Hence the Americans can blow the shit out of the Chinese whenever they want with total impunity. So Putin doesn’t want Shield Missles in Poland or the Czech Republic because he loses face at home… every time America or NATO gets a little closer to Russia, Russians get a little more disgraced. So Putin is offering Southern Russia as a compromise, but the Americans — I think — will add Poland and the CR to their increasing arsenal of “stuff” to bring Russia onside against Iran… none of this was in the CBC report, which really didn’t offer much.

1) Bombing Arrests In Britain And Australia: The British police have cordoned off nineteen houses in Britain, as their search “intensified”. One of the most impressive things to come out of all this — beyond the whole CCTV issue — has been British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s cleavage. The suspects can be held without charge for 48 hours, after that the police can ask a judge for another 48 hours up to a maximum of a month. I’ve seen British, American and Canadian reporters talking aboot how the suspects aren’t talking… but it looks as though they’re all using the same anonymous source. The camera angle used to get the clip of Jacqui Smith making her official statement, which came from a static camera inside Parliament, looks down at the person who is speaking… honestly, it looked like she had someone’s ass in her shirt.

2) Canadian Soldier Killed By American Fire: As expected, an American Army report has concluded that Canadian Private Robert Costall and an American soldier were killed by “friendly fire” from US Special Forces during an insurgent attack against Forward Operating Base Robinson in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The battle occurred in the early morning of March 29, 2006. At the time Private Costall was the 16th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan. To date there have been 60 Canadian soldiers killed while fighting for the new Afghan government.

3) Scooter Libby Sentence Commuted: Scooter wasn’t pardoned, his sentence was commuted, which means he’s still a criminal and he still has to pay a fine of $250,000. No one, let alone the Democratic political headhunters vying for the mans job, should be shocked that President Bush did this. One report I saw summed it up pretty nicely: a Federal Court decided that Scooter was going to have to wait in prison while his appeals were worked out. That meant Scooter was going to a Federal Prison in a couple of days. Article Two, Section Two of the American Constitution says the President gets to pardon or commute the sentence of anyone he wants to… except someone who has been impeached, which was why Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon so quickly. So, like it or not, the President can do this — which, when you think aboot it, is actually a good thing because it proves his administration still has a copy of the Constitution hanging around somewhere.

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About Gabriel

I’ve lived in fifty-two places. I've been paid to pick stones out of fields, take backstage photos of Britney Spears, and report on Internet privacy issues. My photos have been published in several newspapers, and a couple of magazines.

22 Responses to CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 02/07

My ex-sister in law was at the airport when it happened. Was quite dramatic apparently. But I don’t think most Scots are fazed by it. The inconvenience yeah (we only really have three airports so having the main one out of action the first weekend of the school holidays was a bit of a bummer for a pile of people)

What worries me more is the anti-Islamic sentiment that the media are trying to stir up. In Scotland we have always got on well with our Muslim citizens and I would hope Scotland continues to be able to tell the difference between a peaceful majority and some fundamentalist minority.

The new stop and search powers are in force now. How does that make us safer.? Our local police force got them yesterday. That to me is way more scary than some folk trying to blow up an airport. The police are saying publicly that they ARE going to be allowed to use ethnicity as a factor in deciding who to stop. What the fuck?

To be honest, if they suddenly said, for example, that all red headed women where now under suspicion and could be held without charge I think I might be tempted to start blowing things up.

I saw the article, for some reason a couple of the papers here thought it was Newsy enough for the Front Page… we get the same story every July: “Canadians Know Nothing Aboot Canada”. The American papers do it as well with their July 4th Day. Thing is, we’re not supposed to know anything aboot the test… we never have to take it, if someone wants to become Canadian they have to study aboot Canada. That’s pretty much the only prerequisite. Then, when they become a Citizen of this wonderful country, it is their right to be as ignorant aboot Canada as they want.

I’ve already gotten a couple dozen hits on this page from people looking for “Jacqui Smith Cleavage”. She’s gonna be a star.

I really get the impression that — except for the cops — no one’s taking these three near misses seriously. If you look at the two initial car bombs, how they were placed, it’s something they do occasionally in the Iraqi markets… one massive bomb goes off in a crowd, driving the survivors into the second explosion. From what I’ve heard on the news there’s one bar on that street that can hold over a thousand people… that’s a lot of bodies if this thing had worked.

With the need for speed in the early days of an investigation like this I’m not sure I blame the police for forgoing the usual “we’ll search the old ladies to make it look like we’re not looking for Middle Eastern Men in their twenties” charade.

From the reports I’ve seen and read I don’t get the sense of paranoia that was there after the July 7th bombings. I don’t see the “Muslim Communities” being targeted, I would expect those “extraordinary powers” to be used sparingly… the cops seem to have a pretty good idea who they’re looking for.

Trust me…the media over here are actively looking for evidence of unrest. Its just that there isn’t much.

I think the reason no one is taking it seriously is a sense of inevitability about it and possibly to a certain extent sympathy for the cause (though not obviously the actions).

Scottish politicians have been some of the most vocal opponents of the position our army are taking in the middle east (Mr Brown excepted).

There are one or two UK soldiers killed every week over there; a lot given the small size of our armed forces and for what? To keep the crazy Americans sweet?

Part of the problem is that we now have these communities in the UK who feel persecuted and powerless and what do we do to try and stop that? We persecute them further. That’s just crazy.

And taking everyone’s civil liberties away as a response to terrorism? How pointless is that? Yeah, investigate crime. Whatever the motive. But why does this particular crime warrant a different approach to any other criminal act.?

Why should a guy who commits a criminal act “in the name of something or other” be treated differently from any other criminal? There has to be due process. Otherwise who can you trust?

And before anyone says oh but its too hard to get a conviction otherwise, that’s just bullshit. Our conviction rate for rape is lousy but it doesn’t mean we start locking up every guy accused of it.

The Final Tally on the “Jacqui Smith Cleavage” Watch: 45 people used some variation of “Jacqui Smith Cleavage” to find this post today. Not exactly “Br*tney Spears Snatch Photo”, but — in my opinion — a little more disturbing.

John Smeaton has gotten quite a bit of coverage over here as well… seems like a nice guy who definitely did something heroic, but his story — as it has been covered — seems be the comic relief to a story that very few news organizations seem to be taking seriously.

Tonight, on one of the American networks — I think it was NBC News with Brian Williams — teamed up with a University to recreate the bomb from one of the cars then they blew it up… the fire plume wasn’t as scary as they wanted, but the shrapnel (bolts taped to the propane tanks) was found a hundred metres away.

Smeaton’s story reminds me of when a Random Mental Dude snuck past security one night and broke into our Prime Minister’s personal residence a few years ago. The absolute last line of defence between Nut Job and our Prime Minister being assassinated was a flimsy bedroom door and the PM’s wife holding a soapstone carving “just in case”. It took “security” aboot another twenty minutes to respond, meanwhile Dr. Short A. Lightbulb kept banging away on the bedroom door.

It’s a relatively ridiculous yet amusing story, but our PM came within one sleeping pill of being dead… which no one seemed to understand at first. Even now most people have fogotten aboot the event.

The whole “suspended civil liberties” thing… I still don’t see it happening. The last time around the cops were looking for Bad People who looked and sounded exactly like the Good People, and things got a little testy. But this time around they know who they’re looking for. They’ve got photos and phone records and addresses.

It’s like putting out an APB on a robber… the cops know it’s a white dude with a mullet, speaking with a Canadian accent, last seen wearing an army jacket, torn black jeans, white sneakers and a Guns N’ Roses Tour Shirt, so if I go sauntering by a Bobbie, dressed like I was the 17-year old me, they’re going to stop me and ask some questions.

Plus, I have yet to hear any British Official mention the “British Muslim Community” as having had anything to do with this. This was on the AP Wire today:1) “The stern Scot’s few public statements have been somber, measured and brief. Many Britons welcome the change, saying the lower-key approach may better reassure a rattled nation and prevent racial tensions from exploding.”2) “The low-key Smith also stands in contrast to her pugnacious predecessor, John Reid, whose tough talk on terrorism was sometimes criticized for inflaming ethnic and religious tensions. In a speech to lawmakers Monday, Smith called terrorists “criminals whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religious backgrounds.” Brown has spoken of “al-Qaida” attackers but not of “Islamic” or “Muslim” terrorists.”

I live in Texas and I have never liked Bush, but you are right. No one should have been surprised. This happens a lot when a president is near the end of term or is unpopular. He is playing to his party. I do not particularly like it, but this is nothing new.

By the way – I finally made it up to your neck of the woods. I had a very, very bad episode and took a holiday at Echo Valley Ranch in B.C. (Jesmond – If I remember correctly) to get away from everything. In any case, beautiful country. If it were warmer I would consider moving. You guys have amazing medical care.

“If it were warmer I would consider moving.”
Give it a couple of years. Actually you should probably get in the immigration line now.

Looking North from where you normally are ‘Echo Valley Ranch’ is aboot 3000 miles to the left of where I am, but I agree it would definitely be a good place to get over a bad episode. It’s a beautiful part of the planet. I hope it worked well for you.

I don’t know… I get two Detroit stations and the ABC affiliate from Buffalo as part of my basic cable package. The CBS affiliate in Detroit actually advertises its lack of local news programming as a good thing: “No News Is Good News”, but the NBC affiliate does a pretty good job reporting on the myriad of problems they’re having in Detroit, and they’re really involved in the community. The ABC Buffalo newscast is really underfunded (the lighting is sooo bad), but they do a good job as well… and, with their proximity to us, both NBC Detroit and ABC Buffalo actually report on “local” Canadian news issues as well — “local” being Windsor and Toronto.

The U.S. national news shows are worth keeping track of, mostly because most Americans seem to get their news from one of the three 6.30pm shows. I can’t remember the last time one of them broke a story that lasted more than a few days… but, lets face it, the news programming can be pretty weak in most democracies if you only watch the glossy shows. Don’t forget, Frontline is part of the American Press, so are 60 Minutes, the Washington Post, NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, Meet The Press and This Week With George Stephanopoulos… holy crap, I got his name right on the first shot.

Aikaterine: aboot the $25,000 thing… it’s not quite that easy. There is a “fast track” immigration policy which allows specifically skilled people to jump to the front of the line, there’s also a system in place for people with a certain amount of “liquidity”. But neither track is a guarantee, and the money doesn’t change hands. To get onto that track the Government wants to make sure you can support yourself. It’s not a head tax.

The cash thing came into play back when Hong Kong was being taken back by the Chinese. We had a huge influx of wealthy immigrants from Hong Kong into Vancouver and Toronto. 25K sounds really low, from what I remember I think it was $250K in the bank… but the last time I remember this being an issue was aboot ten years ago. I do know that most countries have similar policies.

I liked Canada more when I could buy my way in for a measly $25,000. One of the guys at Echo Valley told me about it. Who knows. Unfortunately Canada will always be too cold. I like it damn near 100 degrees. Living in a bathing suit is my idea of heaven.

I read your blog because you make me laugh (and think). How could I forget about the water? FYI – I have meetings in Toronto, Quebec and Montreal in the Spring of next year. Maybe Canada is calling me.